scholarly journals Epistemic evaluation and the need for ‘impure’ epistemic standards

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikola Anna Kompa
Keyword(s):  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Epistemic Standard ◽  
Epistemic Evaluation ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Epistemic Standards

AbstractThat knowledge ascriptions exhibit some form of sensitivity to context is uncontroversial. How best to account for the context-sensitivity at issue, however, is the topic of heated debates. A certain version of nonindexical contextualism seems to be a promising option. Even so, it is incumbent upon any contextualist account to explain in what way and to what extent the epistemic standard operative in a particular context of epistemic evaluation is affected by non-epistemic factors (such as practical interests). In this paper, I investigate how non-epistemic factors come into play when knowledge is ascribed. I argue that knowledge ascriptions often serve the purpose of providing actionable information. This, in turn, requires that epistemic interests be balanced against non-epistemic interests. Moreover, it raises the question of whose interests matter, those of the ascriber, the addressee (of the knowledge ascription), or the subject of ascription. Eventually, an answer to the question is suggested.

“Knowledge”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Standard ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Relevant Alternatives ◽  
Turn On ◽  
Conversational Context ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Epistemic Standards ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explains contextualism about knowledge ascriptions—the idea that the content expressed by a sentence containing “knows” varies according to the conversational context of the speaker. It articulates and develops a form of contextualism based closely on David Lewis's “relevant alternatives” approach to knowledge. Special attention is given to the idea and proper understanding of an “epistemic standard”—important questions about the relationship between contextualism and rival views turn on this notion. On the approach of the chapter, epistemic standards interact with subject situations to produce sets of relevant alternatives. The chapter also provides some novel linguistic motivations for a contextualism of this sort, and raises questions about how it fits into ideas about broader theoretical roles for knowledge. Those questions define the project of the remainder of the book.

The Psychology of Knowledge Ascriptions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Empirical Psychology ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Process Framework ◽  
Intuitive Judgments ◽  
Ordinary Knowledge

Chapter 5 surveys some empirical psychology and outlines some folk epistemological principles. By considering the heuristic and biases tradition, it is argued that ordinary knowledge ascriptions are standardly driven by heuristic processes and, therefore, associated with biases. This idea is integrated with a dual process framework for mental state ascriptions. On this basis, some of the central heuristic principles that govern intuitive judgments about knowledge ascriptions are articulated, and some of the biases associated with these principles are identified. The result is an account of an epistemic focal bias in intuitive judgments about knowledge ascription. Thus, Chapter 5 provides both a survey of relevant psychology and a development of the folk psychological principles governing knowledge ascriptions.

Further Insights on Fake-Barn Cases and Intuition Variation

Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Carsten Bergenholtz ◽  
Jacob Busch ◽  
Sara Kier Praëm
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Risk Attitude ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Underlying Factor ◽  
Demographic Group ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Group Variation ◽  
Fake Barn

Abstract Studies in experimental philosophy claim to document intuition variation. Some studies focus on demographic group-variation; Colaço et al., for example, claim that age generates intuition variation regarding knowledge attribution in a fake-barn scenario. Other studies claim to show intuition variation when comparing the intuition of philosophers to that of non-philosophers. The main focus has been on documenting intuition variation rather than uncovering what underlying factor(s) may prompt such a phenomenon. We explore a number of suggested explanatory hypotheses put forth by Colaço et al., as well as an attempt to test Sosa's claim that intuition variance is a result of people ‘filling in the details’ of a thought experiment differently from one another. We show (i) that people respond consistently across conditions aimed at ‘filling in the details’ of thought experiments, (ii) that risk attitude does not seem relevant to knowledge ascription, (iii) that people's knowledge ascriptions do not vary due to views about defeasibility of knowledge. Yet, (iv) we find no grounds to reject that a large proportion of people appear to adhere to so-called subjectivism about knowledge, which may explain why they generally have intuitions about the fake-barn scenario that vary from those of philosophers.

Bullshit, trust, and evidence

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 633-656
Author(s):  
Adrian Briciu
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Harry Frankfurt ◽  
The Third ◽  
Main Fault ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Epistemic Standards ◽  
Adequate Evidence

Abstract It has become almost a cliché to say that we live in a post-truth world; that people of all trades speak with an indifference to truth. Speaking with an indifference to how things really are is famously regarded by Harry Frankfurt as the essence of bullshit. This paper aims to contribute to the philosophical and theoretical pragmatics discussion of bullshit. The aim of the paper is to offer a new theoretical analysis of what bullshit is, one that is more encompassing than Frankfurt’s original characterization. I part ways with Frankfurt in two points. Firstly, I propose that we should not analyze bullshit in intentional terms (i.e. as indifference). Secondly, I propose that we should not analyze it in relation to truth. Roughly put, I propose that bullshit is best characterized as speaking with carelessness toward the evidence for one’s conversational contribution. I bring forward, in the third section, a battery of examples that motivate this characterization. Furthermore, I argue that we can analyze speaking with carelessness toward the evidence in Gricean terms as a violation of the second Quality maxim. I argue that the Quality supermaxim, together with its subordinate maxims, demand that the speaker is truthful (contributes only what she believes to be true) and reliable (has adequate evidence for her contribution). The bullshitter’s main fault lies in being an unreliable interlocutor. I further argue that we should interpret what counts as adequate evidence, as stipulated by the second Quality Maxim, in contextualist terms: the subject matter and implicit epistemic standards determine how much evidence one needs in order to have adequate evidence. I contrast this proposed reading with a subjectivist interpretation of what counts as having adequate evidence and show that they give different predictions. Finally, working with a classic distinction, I argue that we should not understand bullshit as a form of deception but rather as a form of misleading speech.

Solving the Skeptical Problem

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith DeRose
Keyword(s):  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Skeptical Argument ◽  
Classical Form ◽  
Skeptical Problem ◽  
Epistemic Standards

In this chapter the classical form of skeptical argument, based on skeptical hypotheses, is presented. Then a contextualist response to the problem of skepticism, built upon the “Rule of Sensitivity,” is explained, defended, and shown to be superior to other solutions, including other contextualist solutions, Nozick’s solution, and, especially, skeptical solutions. It is argued that the best conclusion we can draw from the skeptic’s argument is that we are not ordinarily mistaken when we claim or ascribe knowledge, despite the best efforts of the “bold skeptic” to show that we are. Rather, the main insights to be rationally drawn from a study of the skeptic’s argument involve the context-sensitivity of attributions of knowledge, and the role that the Rule of Sensitivity plays in changing the epistemic standards that govern these attributions.

The Case against Epistemic Relativism: Replies to Rosen and Neta

Episteme ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Boghossian
Keyword(s):  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Moral Standard ◽  
Epistemic Relativism ◽  
Epistemic Standard ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
Epistemic Standards ◽  
Relativistic View ◽  
Moral Facts

ABSTRACTUnlike the relativistic theses drawn from physics, normative relativisms involve relativization not to frames of reference but to something like our standards, standards that we have to be able to think of ourselves as endorsing or accepting. Thus, moral facts are to be relativized to moral standards and epistemic facts to epistemic standards. But a moral standard in this sense would appear to be just a general moral proposition and an epistemic standard just a general epistemic proposition. Pulling off either relativism, then, requires not just relativizing the facts in the domain in question to the relevant standards; it requires taking a non-absolutist view of the standards themselves. Otherwise a commitment to absolute truths in the domain in question will show up in one’s attitude towards the standards themselves. But it is very hard to see how to take a genuinely non-absolutist attitude towards the standards themselves. That, in essence, is the difficulty for a relativistic view of a normative domain that I tried to develop in Chapter 6 of Fear of Knowledge. In their commentaries, Gideon Rosen and Ram Neta come up with ingenious ways of attempting to circumvent that difficulty. In my reply, I try to explain why I don’t believe they succeed.

scholarly journals EPISTEMIC INVARIANTISM AND CONTEXTUALIST INTUITIONS

Episteme ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Dinges
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Position ◽  
Epistemic Standard ◽  
Truth Values ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Error Possibility ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
High Standards ◽  
Knowledge Claims ◽  
Epistemic Invariantism

ABSTRACTEpistemic invariantism, or invariantism for short, is the position that the proposition expressed by knowledge sentences does not vary with the epistemic standard of the context in which these sentences can be used. At least one of the major challenges for invariantism is to explain our intuitions about scenarios such as the so-called bank cases. These cases elicit intuitions to the effect that the truth-value of knowledge sentences varies with the epistemic standard of the context in which these sentences can be used. In this paper, I will defend invariantism against this challenge by advocating the following, somewhat deflationary account of the bank case intuitions: Readers of the bank cases assign different truth-values to the knowledge claims in the bank cases because they interpret these scenarios such that the epistemic position of the subject in question differs between the high and the low standards case. To substantiate this account, I will argue, first, that the bank cases are underspecified even with respect to features that should uncontroversially be relevant for the epistemic position of the subject in question. Second, I will argue that readers of the bank cases will fill in these features differently in the low and the high standards case. In particular, I will argue that there is a variety of reasons to think that the fact that an error-possibility is mentioned in the high standards case will lead readers to assume that this error-possibility is supposed to be likely in the high standards case.

Diagnosing Practical Factor Effects

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Communicative Function ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Directive Speech Acts ◽  
Directive Speech

Chapter 12 deals with the practical factor effects by arguing that in the cases where practical factor effects are generated, the focus is on some pertinent action. In the cases where the knowledge ascription is merely mental, it is argued to serve as a heuristic proxy for a more complex judgment about epistemic actionability. Linguistic knowledge ascriptions are argued to serve a directive communicative function in the relevant cases. Therefore, the “shifty” judgments about the knowledge ascriptions reflect whether they meet or violate the epistemic norm governing directive speech acts—specifically the speech act of recommending. Thus, Chapter 12 combines psychological and linguistic considerations to account for the puzzling patterns of knowledge ascriptions constituting practical factor effects.

Contextualism and the Problem of Knowledge Ascription

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 110-126
Author(s):  
Ekaterina V. Vostrikova ◽  
Petr S. Kusliy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Compositional Semantics ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Contextualist Approach ◽  
Fake Barn

The paper explores the contextualist approach towards the semantics of knowledge ascriptions. The authors discuss the relevance of these studies in semantics for the major issues in virtue epistemology. It is argued that despite the advantages that contextualism has over its alternatives (in particular, relativism and subject sensitive invariablisism), it still requires a more elaborated compositional semantics that it currently has. We review several concrete contextualsit proposals to the semantics of the verb know in light of their applicability to the well-known type of examples known as the fake barn example, point out some of their particular shortcomings, and propose a revision, which represents a variant of D. Lewis’s general approach to the semantics of know.

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